A Tiny Piece of the World Broke Off
by IndigoClockwork
Summary: I walk down the middle of the street with my hands held out to the side, thinking that maybe today is the day I'll find the one that killed him. Gaz's POV, rated T for character death, language, and implied and actual violence. This puppy is DONE.
1. Tagging Cars

C'est moi. This monster is a Dib deathfic, told from Gaz's POV.

**Disclaimer:** I do not, never did, and probably never will own Invader Zim or the characters involved. I do, however, own the nasty-looking cat mentioned further on.

* * *

I walk down the road from school in the middle of the street. 

I walk with my arms spread out, so I can feel the air hit my fingers as cars swerve wildly around me, trying to avoid running me down.

More likely, they're trying to avoid denting their ugly cars. I hate them all.

I hear a screech of metal on concrete as one collides with a building and I smile.

I tried to wear black today, for mourning, but no one noticed. They just assumed I was being more Goth than usual. I thought about shaving my eyebrows, like the Egyptians did for their dead cats, but decided against it.

Dib wasn't a cat.

A bus rounds the corner and comes toward me, the driver's tiny eyes set past me in an uncomprehending stupor. He doesn't slow down.

_This one might be it_, I think.

I stop walking and bring my arms back down to my sides, still in the path of the bus.

Still, it doesn't turn.

_Maybe this will be the one_.

It can't be more than twenty feet away, still speeding at me. The driver's hands are loosely on the wheel, his ugly blank stare somewhere off behind me.

_This might be it_.

Someone on the bus screams.

Suddenly, a passenger slams the beast-driver out of the way and yanks the wheel, her desperate eyes on me, to make sure the bus and I don't become acquainted.

I feel the blast of air as the bus's grimy sides rush past me. It's a close call; the metal can't be more than a foot from my face. Violet hair fans like fingers, reaching for the bus as it zooms on past, barely missing me.

I turn and look back at the fleeing vehicle, pale faces scarcely visible through the filth on the rear windows. Their expressions are concerned but blank.

I reach into the pocket on my black jacket and pull out a notebook and a pen with tiny skulls on it. I flip it open to the second page, past a doodle of an obese pig and a scribbled list of numbers and names.

_Bus_, I write. _Blue, filthy, old. License plate 44XD563HG9. Fat driver._

Maybe this was the one that killed him.

I put the notebook and pen back and I keep walking.

Various pedestrians stare, and someone shouts something about the bus. People strain their necks to see where it went, then look back at me. A small crowd gathers and mindless chatter fills the air like wasps as people try to figure out what happened.

Likely, they only want to know in case an information reward is offered.

I hate them all.

I round the corner the bus came from, my arms back in the air. There aren't any cars here, just a hobo and a nasty-looking cat. I relax my arms again but stay in the road. If I'm lucky, a car will come up behind me and crash.

_A few more blocks_, I think.

I round another corner in the dingy labyrinth of apartments and pawn shops. Another purple-haired girl is at the other end, leaning on a streetlight and chattering on a candy apple-red phone. It stands out like a pinprick of blood against the gray of the city walls.

I have to pass her to get where I'm going, so I shake my shoulders out and keep walking.

She gives me a vague wave as I pass. What's her name? Zita? She is- was- a classmate of Dib's, and that's all I know about her.

I go to turn the corner, but stop myself and turn back to look at her. She's wearing a pink and brown striped dress and dull white sneakers. There's a polka-dotted headband in her hair.

"That's, like, what I said, but he doesn't listen," she whines, popping a bubble with her gum. It's loud and echoes off the sordid walls. Somewhere on a second floor a window slams down.

I lean against a telephone pole and watch her carefully. Does she know that Dib is dead? Does she care?

"Well, yeah, but it was, like, my dress in the first place," she squeals.

I hate them all.

Two more streets pass, all filthy. Sometimes people try to brighten them up with flowers or banners, but in time they all fade to gray.

Everything in the city is gray. There is no exception.

I turn the final corner and see it.

A bright green house with crooked walls and industrial cables in the apartments next to it towers at the end of a crumbling turnaround. An oversized garden gnome in the front lawn turns to watch me with its misshapen eyes.

And right across the cul-de-sac from it is the juniper bush where Dib liked to hide, one side flattened by tire marks. Everyone thought it was his secret fort, like a little kid's playhouse.

I knew that it was really just where he went to spy on Zim.

I kneel down and touch the crushed branches and leaves where the car went over. The tire marks are big and the path is wide; that's why I thought it might have been a bus.

It's not like I got a lot of details about it anyway. The day it happened, Dad's projection screen came on and told me.

"Your poor, insane brother was crushed to death by a vehicle today. There's leftover pizza in the fridge if you want it. Now, back to SCIENCE!" he said.

That's it. No tears, no mourning, no caring.

The funeral- all twenty minutes of it- was just the same.

I stand back up and look at the pitiful memorial. There are three flowers and one card; the flowers are all lilies and are from me. I knew lilies were his favorite; that was our mom's name, Lily. He always liked her best.

The card, however, is not from me, and it wasn't there yesterday. It's an irritating shade of green, with fancy gold letters on the front that say "Congratulations on Your New Baby!"

What the hell?

I pick it up, my skull pendant swinging down and smacking the card disapprovingly. The paper is rough and it smells of ham. I open it and the inside is a mass of black scribbled writing that looks like it was done by someone who didn't know how to hold a pen.

_Dib-Stink_, the scribbles read, _Now that your filthy Earth body rests in your filthy Earth dirt, the mighty ZIM is free to conquer your pathetic ball of demon water and trees! Know that I will use your demise to my advantage and have this planet in the claws of the Armada by next Tuesday! Tuesday, I say! I AM ZIM!!!_

There was a horrible cartoon of a buglike Zim standing on top of the world and, strangely, holding a slab of bacon.

_Nevertheless_, the card continued in a smaller note at the bottom, _you were a decent foe for the mighty Zim. Not decent like me, but still decent. Rest in peace with your disturbingly large head._

_P.S. I am normal._

Well. No prizes for guessing who the author was. I crane my head around the bush to watch Zim's house for a moment. It hasn't changed since the accident at all; in fact it seems nothing has. It's like a tiny piece of the world broke off and stopped itself in time, and everything else went on without it.

Maybe I'm on that piece. Maybe Zim is with me.

I let the card drop from my fingers and turn to the exact spot where Dib like to sit. You can tell by the scattered candy bar wrappers and the way the grass is gone in little patterns that look a lot like crop circles. That was how he doodled, I guess.

"Hey," I say. My voice is low and raspy, and I don't try to sound to sound cheerful. "I found another one. A bus. Blue and filthy with a fat driver. The tires looked like they might fit the tracks." I gesture vaguely to the squashed bush, then take a deep breath.

"I will find the person that hit you, Dib. I will find them and plunge them into a never-ending nightmare world from which there is no escape! I will pick out their eyeballs and chew on their skull and fill their veins with needles and thorns! I will find them, Dib! I will find them and they will suffer!!"

My voice had risen to a scream by the end. I look around, and the uncaring gray city stares back. _Go ahead,_ it says. _Be crazy. Look where it got your brother._

And I imagine that it laughs, high and cold and dark.

* * *

Flames (legible ones), reviews, comments, suggestions all welcome.

Also thanks to Invader Becky and Clad for the biscuit.


	2. Newspaper Games

Chapter 2- still Gaz's POV. A bit weirder, I think. This reads best if you put a sad song on; I recommend "Boston" by Augustana or "Candy" by Lovedrug.

**Disclaimer:** I do not, nor do I claim to, own Invader Zim or any of the characters or locations involved. Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon do.

* * *

I sit on the sidewalk outside of our house with the same blue notebook and pen in my hand, still watching the cars go by. It's been three weeks since I last visited Dib's memorial.

Three weeks since the bush, the flowers, and the card were all removed by the city's Sanitation department, which apparently exists to pick up things that don't need to be removed and then ignore the rest.

I almost tried to stop them, asking the more important-looking of the two people there if they had any authority to remove memorials. I went to the city hall and submitted my complaints in a small wooden box that looked as if it hadn't been checked in years. I wrote a letter to the mayor explaining the injustice of my situation.

But in the end, I just stood and watched as they dumped the flowers and card into a bag, pulled up the bush, put it in a bigger bag, and drove off.

They didn't notice when a flower fell out the back.

And they didn't notice the needle I stuck in their tire.

The sun finally starts to set, the colors of dusk muted by smog and airborne filth. It starts to get cold as the night comes in, so I pull on my sweatshirt, wincing as it ruffles my hair sprayed head. I didn't really expect to see the culprit today. Dib was killed on the poor side of town and we live on the wealthy outskirts. The two don't mix very well.

Still, I follow the sparse stream of passing cars with my eyes. They don't look right; somehow I think I'll know when I see the killer.

More minutes and more cars pass by, all new and shiny with custom plates and fancy paint jobs. They reek of money and pride and overblown egos; you can almost smell the smugness. The contrast from the filth of the main city is painfully blatant.

Slowly the sky notices that the sun has set. It turns to blue, then black, like a massive paper screen pulled by an invisible hand. The stars come out, one by one, sliding into their usual patterns and winking at me like old friends with new secrets to tell.

I remember how Dib used to watch the stars late at night. He'd climb out onto the roof and stare at them for hours and hours, motionless and silent, waiting for something better to come. Then when dawn came, the stars would disappear and he would come back down with them in his eyes.

I shake the memory away and scold myself silently. Three cars have passed in the time I was lost in thought, and I didn't get a single one of their license plates. I squint off into the darkness and think that I probably wouldn't have been able to see them anyway.

I get off the ground with a grunt and head back inside, pausing to let the door sensor recognize me. It has a tendency to overreact to strangers sometimes. There are still bits of burnt fur left over from the last squirrel to cross our lawn.

I walk in and the house is dark and quiet, the only sound a soft humming coming from the supercomputer/generator/water heater/toaster in the basement. Dad isn't home yet. He hasn't been home for well over two weeks, actually. Sometimes his pre-recorded projection screen will come on and remind me to feed the puppy.

I shuffle to the kitchen and flip on some lights, wincing at the brightness from the reflections. The room is spotless, all chrome and stainless steel. It reminds me vaguely of Dad- clinical, shiny, and perfect, but colder than ice. He never was one for affection. When Mom left he simply turned to science and stopped caring.

I settle into one of the chairs, grimacing at the chill of the metal. There's a newspaper and an apple on the table. The apple is mine, it has a worm inside it and I'm waiting to see how long it takes to hatch. The newspaper was probably brought in by the house or, hopefully, the maid that shows up every few months to vacuum the already spotless floors. I like her. She sometimes tells me about her kids back at home.

I pick up the newspaper and idly flip the pages, browsing past blurred pictures of buildings and people and clothes. All grey. Why is everything so goddamn grey?

I focus on the words instead and start to play a game I invented when I was first learning to read. I'd flip through the pages and randomly select a word, then put them together to make a sentence. It used to make me giggle when I was little. Then I grew up and actually read the stories I was using.

I never played the game again.

For the first time in years, without knowing why, I start at it again, at the headliner. My first word is _Campsite_. I briefly notice the word 'poisoning' near it and hurriedly turn the page.

The game goes by quickly after that, and I begin to realize why I liked it so much. My sentence starts to take shape with words like _bamboozled_, _competition_, _typewriter_, _pinkness_, _chimney_, all sorts of stupid things. I keep going, picking up words like _caravan_, _meeting_, _hit-and-run_…

Wait.

I flip back to the last one, my sluggish heart picking up a little. It had to be a coincidence, it had to be…I was being stupid, no one cared about my dead brother except me.

Still, I spend fourteen minutes scouring the paper to find that tiny phrase, and find it I do.

"_D. Grisaille, age unknown, was arrested today for the hit-and-run murder of Dab Membrane. Motive unknown, alchohol is suspected to be involved. "_

I have to read it a few times for the message to sink in. The typos strike me as ironic somehow, underneath my shock. No one cared about Dib when he was alive, why should they care now that he's dead?

Why should they care that the only person who wanted to save this world is sitting in a hole in a godforsaken cemetery somewhere? Why should they spell his name right or give him more than just a tiny blurb on the back page next to the obituaries? Why should they care?

A tiny spot of moisture lands on the paper, darkened by mascara and eyeliner, blurring the words into a smear of grayness. I lift a stunned hand to my cheek and sob in surprise. I haven't cried in years, not since Mom left. Not since Dib held my hand and said, "It's going to be all right, Gaz. It's going to be all right," and didn't let go until I stopped crying.

I let out a shuddering breath and give in. "It's not all right," I whisper.

And I just sit there and cry.

Minutes pass by, the hands on the clock creeping along on their destined paths as the tears run down my face and onto my sweatshirt. Dimly I marvel at my lack of self control, my shaking hands, my soaked shirt. No one affects me like this. No one.

No one except Dib.

And no one except the asshole who killed him.

And then it's over, my tears dried up and the trails on my face drying in the cold air. The sobs come to a close, my fingers stop their trembling. In seconds my wet face is the only sign of my outburst.

I guess sustained crying takes practice.

I take a deep breath, trying to work past the pain in my throat. It stings like lemon juice on a paper cut, and my breath comes in whistles. I massage my neck with black-painted fingernails and try to figure out where I go from here.

I have the name of Dib's murder. Good.

I know that s/he is probably still at the police station. Okay.

I can't really do anything about this. Not good.

I don't even know which police station. Bad.

Even if I did, it's not like I can start a lynch party or anything. Very bad.

I seriously doubt that anyone else cares. Atrocious.

I decide to stop before I work myself into a deeper rut than the one I'm already in or run out of synonyms for 'bad'. Despair will get me nowhere, I tell myself. I need a plan.

And instantly I think of Zim.

Before I slap myself for being stupid, I pause to think about it. He _is_ the only other person to have cared (maybe) about Dib. And he does have a large arsenal of exotic weapons.

Weapons are definitely a plus.

And we did work together once, when Tak came. He may not have executed a brilliant plan, but he was destructive and that's what I'm looking for. So Zim is a possibility.

Other than that…

I spend a few minutes thinking about my alternatives to the insane alien bent on world conquest and come up with nothing.

My situation is _beyond_ desperate.

I sigh and lean the chair back, staring at the metallic ceiling and the blurry reflection of a darkly dressed Goth splayed across it.

So Zim it is.

_I am so screwed._

* * *

Well, this is it. The ending is a tad rushed, and I'm not overly happy with the chapter as a whole. Took much longer to write than the last bit; I think I'm afraid of plotlines... 

Review s'il vous plait.


	3. Zim's In This One

Right, here we go: Piece of the World, Chapter 3. It's got a bit more action in it than the last chapters. I noticed that I was veering towards the long and rambling style so I decided to veer off that path and head straight into disaster- I mean, head towards an interesting plotline. Heh. Yeah.

**Disclaimer:** Just like the last three or so times I've said this, I don't own Invader Zim or any of the characters or locations involved.

* * *

Slowly, carefully, I peek around the fence to Zim's house. It's not so much that I'm afraid of the crazy little bugger, it's just that his base takes after him. Sometimes lasers go off at nothing in the middle of the night. You can see the smoke rising all the way from my house. 

But sometimes, like today, it's practically blind. I stick a hand out and wave it around, and scream some nonsense words at the mutant lawn gnomes. They don't respond. Someone else might mistake this for playing dead, but I know it's just that they aren't working today. They only seemed to work when Dib was around, actually.

Reassured, I saunter onto the lawn towards the door, feeling sickly grass blades snap under my feet. The peephole above the Men's sign glares at me suspiciously. I suppose that that weird little robot might be looking through it, but he's not really a concern. If anything, I should be worried about what Zim will do.

Somewhat apprehensively, I ring the doorbell, which sounds oddly like a twisted show tune. I knew from the start that asking Zim for assistance was probably not the best idea. Aside from the whole crazy-as-a-bedbug thing, I don't really know if he'll help me at all. It's not like he has any reason to.

Somewhere in the house, a heavy object crashes to the floor. An irritatingly high voice screams incomprehensibly. Then the door swings open violently, and I'm stuck staring at my brother's pet alien.

He hasn't changed much in the months since Dib's death, except that he looks an inch or so taller. But that could just be the uneven floor of his base. Somehow he never got the tiling down right.

"Gaz human," he greets me. "What brings you to the base of mighty ZIM today?"

He smoothes his crimson tunic-dress thing almost self-consciously, and I notice that his gloves are flecked with some sort of purplish goo.

Deciding to skip the "tactful negotiations" part of my amazingly-well-thought-out plan, I say, "I need your help. Are you willing to help me find my brother's killer, hunt them down, and then possibly return the favor or at least inflict massive bodily harm?" It comes out in a rush of words and questionable grammar. _Dammit_, I think. _F- for timing_.

He's startled by my outburst, I think. Slowly he turns his head slightly to the side in an oddly humanish "please don't hurt me, crazy person" gesture. "And why," he drawls, "would the almighty Zim do that?"

I grab a hunk of his collar and slam him up against the side of his door. He's surprisingly light; he can't weigh more than fifty pounds.

His eyes widen in surprise and he tries to say something, but I cut him off. "You will help me, Zim," I say in a blank tone. "You will help me or I will plunge you into a world of agony for the rest of your pathetic alien life. And when I am done I will tear your pathetic alien eyes out and nail your pathetic alien head to my door to make sure that everyone sees why no one questions me."

Note to self: people skills could use some work.

A few slightly awkward moments pass as he just stares at me. I try not to appear too aggressive, but it's tricky after taking in what I just did. I didn't even plan to, to be honest. Threatening people is just what I do.

Finally, he tilts his freaky alien head to the side and slowly says, "Very well. Zim will assist you in your quest for vengeance."

I gradually lower my arm until his boots touch the ground, then release my fingers. I go to thank him or possibly to reinforce my earlier promise, but he gets there first. "BUT, know that the mighty ZIM has not chosen to help you because of your pathetic threat. PATHETIC, I SAY!! I AM ZIM!!"

"That's grea-"

"ZIM has decided to help because he ENJOYS the painful destruction of the filthy meat puppets! NOT because he fears the puny wrath of the female dirt child!"

But I can see his legs shaking.

"You're in, then," I say, leaning over him a little. "What do you have in the way of weapons?"

He fiddles with the edge of his shirt. "My armory is far beyond the comprehension of a mere dirt child," he says, trying to be condescending but it just doesn't work. "You'll have to come in-"

"That's fine." I cut him off and brush past him into his strange little base. I don't know why I'm being so aggressive. I mean, I'm usually nasty to people to get what I want, but not like this.

He turns to follow me, his mouth gaping a little. Desperate to feel in control again, he screams, "COMPUTER!"

A tentacle-like wire snakes down from the sea of cords that lines the ceiling. It has a fisheye lens on the end that swivels to point at Zim.

A hideously bored, mechanical voice comes from seemingly nowhere. "Whaaaat?"

Apparently Zim is used to his computer responding in such a manner, because he takes it in stride and continues. "Computer, take us the weapons room," he says, glancing at me. "Quickly, I say!"

The bored voice gives a noncommittal mumble and the tentacle retreats to join its fellows among the ceiling tiles. The end table next to the massive TV starts to shake, then falls over and rolls into the kitchen. The tile it was standing on rises up, a narrow elevator column attached to its underside.

I turn my head to the side and look at Zim, one eyebrow raised. He murmurs something incomprehensible and gestures to the elevator. "After you, meat child."

"Why, thank you, kind sir." I step into the column, noting the violet interior and wondering how we were both going to fit.

But fit we do, barely, and with a shudder the elevator begins to descend. Evidently the computer didn't think Zim to be much of a threat, much like everyone who isn't Dib (which, I reminded myself, actually _was_ everyone), because the descent is anything but speedy. I have plenty of time to look out the narrow windows of the elevator into the rooms we passed. I see massive cylindrical tanks as high as the ceiling in one room, filled with horrible shapeless things, and flashes of sharp-looking blades hanging from the ceiling.

The sight fills me with a kind of nostalgia, and I realize with a start that the last time I was in Zim's base I had traveled in this very elevator, which had somehow managed to fit Dib along with Zim and me.

_Dib_, I think. He would have given his haunted gummy collection to be able to be here with me right now. To be in a cramped elevator with his hateful little sister and a deranged alien, looking out into rooms full of the stuff his dreams were made of.

I push the memory aside, reminding myself that it's the reason I'm here. To pass the time, I ask Zim where his little robot friend is.

"Out doing the violent body movements that would ordinarily be considered the symptoms of a horrible disease, which you humans call 'dancing', at a large hollow brick full of loud screaming-songs and seizure-inducing lights, which he assures me is known as a 'club'."

Okay then.

The rest of the trip passes in silence, the tension only broken by the waves of softly colored light coming from all the different levels we pass. Then the elevator hits something hard, and as though startled, the engine jerks to a stop. Through the window I watch as the lights of the armory explode on, row by row, illuminating what appears to be a giant hallway lined with nasty-looking sharp things of all shapes and sizes.

I burst out of the column as soon as the door slides open enough, gasping for air that isn't stale with the strange, sharp scent of alien skin, and then catch my breath again.

Ahead of me on the wall, curiously separated from the other items by a ring of empty space, is a medium-sized pistol-looking thing. As I approach, brightly colored holograms spring up in midair, bearing alien characters in large, block-style print.

Even as I wave them away, I grin because it doesn't take much to see that they obviously say "you're an idiot if you touch this".

I pick it up and let it rest in my hand as Zim disentangles himself from the elevator and comes stumbling out. It's sort of a bluish-black color, covered in spines and flanges and all sorts of nasty things, obviously alien in design. As my body heat starts to reach the metal, or plastic or whatever, tiny lights come on along what should be the barrel. They start out in a slow ring of red, then quickly speed up and change color, surrounding the muzzle in a fiery corona of green.

"Behold, human, the mighty weapons room of ZIM! Tremble as you witness-"

He cuts himself off as the wall slightly to his right violently explodes as a spiraling ball of bluish energy hits it. Burning metal is thrown across the room, covering the ceiling, floor, and walls with tiny globs of shrapnel like a spattering of blood. The hole where the energy hit continues on through several ruined rooms, leaving massive shards of broken glass and metal and worse things in its wake.

I lower the weapon as he whirls furiously around to glare at me. "Have you the wire-rot, human?" he screams. "You do not know the power you hold in your filthy meat puppet hands!"

I gesture to the tunnel of destruction I just created. "I do now," I say. "I want this one."

* * *

Well, as always, I'm going to have to ask you to R&R. Sorry. 

I actually tried to get some dialog into this bit, and I'm not sure how well it turned out. I was always bad at having my characters do things that weren't thinking...

Ah well. Constructive criticism, legible flames, all welcome.


	4. City Lights

Well, I have a disease right now and not much else to do, so here it be. I'm getting kind of sick of this story, actually. It think it started going downhill after the first chapter. So I'm either going to abandon it or try to do the bandage approach and get it over with quickly.

**Disclaimer:** I'm tired right now. Can't you just read the ones from the other three chapters?

* * *

………

………

………

………

I watch the dots march past on the giant screen like tiny black ants, wishing that I could take off my shoe and squash them. Or make the search go faster. Whatever. I still find it amazing that "advanced alien technology" can't go any faster than my dumpy old laptop with the broken 'enter' key.

I lean the enormous chair I'm in back almost all the way to the floor and scan the room for Zim. The alien in question went to do something stupid ten minutes ago. I bounce up and down on the amazing chair out of boredom until my head feels like it's going to explode. Why can't Earth have chairs like these?

I swing back up and start kicking the floor to spin myself around, dimly watching the room blur by, everything smothered in the green light from the monitor. So far my quest for vengeance hasn't been very fruitful. I've almost gotten hit by about twenty or so cars or buses, had a minor emotional breakdown, forced my way into an alliance with a deranged alien and said alien's base, and was now waiting for the base's shitty computer to find the police station where my brother's killer was held.

I pull the freaky alien gun out of my bag and start toying with it, pointing it at random things in the room. It seems weird that an alien would keep track of our local police stations better than the city hall can, but I guess it's not really all that surprising. Zim's base has hacked every database and document connected to any sort of wire, and even a few that I'm pretty sure would only be on paper. If the little bugger was even slightly competent, he would have had this planet conquered the day he arrived.

Vaguely I think that I should be glad that Earth's very own private would-be invader is horrible at his job, but it's pretty hard to care. Sometimes I think Earth would be better off in the hands of another species anyway.

I hear stomping noises outside the hallway and slowly rotate around with the gun pointed mockingly at the door and an intense look on my face, privately enjoying my badass moment. In comes Zim, looking annoyed and with half a taco inexplicably stuck to the top of his head. He glares at me. "GIR's back."

"Fabulous," I say, tucking the gun back into my bag and checking to make sure what Zim had pointed out as the safety catch was on. "Any ideas how to get this thing moving maybe a little bit faster than rush hour on a Friday afternoon?"

As if desperate to prove me wrong, the screen makes a freaky squealing noise like a car sliding along a highway rail at 60 miles an hour. "Search complete! Suspect FOUND!" It somehow manages to sound really angry and really excited at the same time. Kind of like some radio DJs.

"Finally," I grumble, but Zim's screech overrides me.

"FOOLISH human! Tremble at the power of my base! Did you truly doubt the mighty Irken technology of ZIIIIIM?!" He's so happy, it's pathetic. I almost feel bad for him, desperate to feel like he's in control again.

"Well, yeah, after the first hour I was losing a little faith, but now I'm stunned." I roll my eyes. Zim glares at me, but it's kind of pouty, like 'hey, give me a break here'.

"I mean, oh! Such power. Earth is surely doomed. Aaaaaahhh." I deliver it in a dead monotone, but that doesn't kill the fun for egotistical Zim, who punches the air with both tiny arms and grins at me arrogantly.

We banter back and forth for a bit, before the computer finally coughs (improbable as that sounds) and says, "Uh, search still complete. Whenever you guys are ready."

I pull my tongue back in my mouth and twirl around in the amazing chair. "Right, so," I start, "where's it at?"

A huge map comes up, changing the lighting from green to blue and red as a spiderweb of streets and symbols pops up. It looks faintly like a bullet-struck piece of glass, with a hundred jagged lines all radiating from a dark center of concentrated blue symbols.

"This," says the computer in a math-teacher kind of voice, "is the actual city and the outlying areas." Apparently oblivious to the fact that we both already know this, it continues, "And this is where your search query is." A big black X pops up somewhere on the east side of town. Hardly surprising, really. I already knew that was where a couple of the major prisons were.

Zim, however, didn't. He comes up to my side and points at the screen demandingly. "Computer, zoom in and show details."

It obeys, and the X swells to fill the screen for a second, then changes to a 3-D diamond hovering over a small grey block. Alien symbols scroll down the side of the monitor, interspersed with a few human names and numbers.

I tilt my head to the side and cradle my chin in my hand. Some of the letters don't seem to form words, while some look like-

Grisaille.

"Stop!" I screech, catapulting out of the chair and nearly landing on the screen. The list jerks to a messy stop, as though startled, and Zim twists his head sideways to give me a curious look.

"Grisaille," I say, stumbling over the French pronunciation a little. "That's it. It was in the paper."

Zim looks at the name on the screen, squished between a jumble of numbers and some presumably Irken hieroglyphic-looking things. "Grruh-suh-ay?" he mumbles, then looks back at me again. "You're sure?"

"Yes, certain, positive, convinced, undoubting, let's _go_ already!" All of a sudden, it feels like we don't have enough time to stand around waiting for everybody to get with the program.

He puts up his hands in a 'back off, I surrender' motion. "Fine then. COMPUTER!" he screams, making me jump. "Details on this 'Grrrr-suhhhai' person."

"Whuh? Oh…right." Is it just me or is everyone a little slow on the uptake today? "Prisoner 0410967B56RR, Destine Grisaille. Age unlisted, convicted for hit-and-run. Currently at the Broyee Women's Prison. Term unlisted. "

The fact that Dib's killer is female catches me off guard. I somehow expected it to be a guy; all the cars that nearly hit me were driven mostly by men anyway. But it only stops me for a moment, because I practically have a PhD in indiscriminate worldwide hatred.

"Right then. I call shotgun." I stalk off, not really sure where I'm going but determined to get there without Zim's help.

"Human dirt child!" he screeches, bolting after me as the green-blue lights from the computer screen shut off and the room is drenched in darkness. "Wait for the almighty ZIIIIIM! You'll put your filthy meaty hands all over EVERYTHING!"

"You're joking, right?" I ask.

We're in Zim's musty attic/aircraft loft, staring at the Voot cruiser, which is currently covered in branches, leaves, numerous small dents, and unidentifiable reddish things, and leaking a horrible-looking blackish-green fluid. It doesn't look like it could fly two feet, let alone across town.

"Zim has made no such joke," he says, running his black gloves all over the windshield seam for no apparent reason.

"Umm, can this thing…fly?" I say skeptically.

"Do you doubt the superior Irken technology of Zim, human meat child? For behold!" He smacks a random spot on the little cruiser's hull, which doesn't look any different from any other area of the battered ship. The windshield gives a pneumatic hiss and flicks open upward.

Zim goes to turn around and give me a victory speech, but something in the cockpit makes a barking noise and spits sparks in his eyes.

I wait until he finishes squealing and say, "Fabulous ship. Practically Air Force One. Can we go now?"

This only results in more glares, but finally we manage to get our collective act together and settle in.

The seats are wide and comfy, much like the computer chair I'd so enjoyed messing with. The rest of the interior leaves much to be desired; it's small and cramped and smells like bacon. Flashing buttons of no clear purpose haphazardly litter the dashboard and annoying little holograms of various meters pop up.

I fidget around, trying to get the pistol thing still in my bag out from under my thigh, while Zim sets about messing with the bizarre controls and looking superior. He really shouldn't be bothering to, though; I mean, flew Tak's ship all the way to the North Pole by myself during the Santa incident a couple years ago. It isn't _that_ hard.

The roof above us starts to split open like a giant eggshell, giving us a clear view of the sky. I'm surprised to see that it's night out. Weird. I guess I was in Zim's base longer than I thought. The moon hangs fat and yellow in the sky, all the stars clustered around it like breathless understudies waiting for their chance to shine.

Somewhere behind us, the engines purr to life as the roof stops moving, giving Zim a wide pathway out of the attic. He probably needs it, I think. I've seen him fly before.

The alien in question grins triumphantly to himself as we take off, so I pretend not to notice when by a sheer defiance of logic he still manages to scrape up against the sides of the roof at least twice. I guess that explains the cruiser's condition.

But, bad piloting and poor ship conditions notwithstanding, we manage to take off into the night sky. I lean to the side and stare down at Zim's quickly shrinking base, noting that the roof started to close not long after we left. I'm almost positive that at least three people probably saw the house split open and a beat-up spaceship fly out, but it doesn't really matter. People will convince themselves of anything about what they don't understand. I'm sure it'll pop up in conversations tomorrow as a runaway weather balloon or an oddly shaped cloud.

I turn my attention to the front again as Zim says, "We should arrive in about thirty of your inferior Earth minutes."

"That long?"

He mumbles something about a torn fuel cell and waves a claw dismissively. I wait a few more minutes to see if he has anything else to say, and then return my focus to the side. I love watching the tiny lights of the city go by beneath us. It makes it look dreamlike and perfect, like a Christmas card. You can't even see the car crashes from up here.

I put my head on my arms and watch the world slide mistily by beneath us with a vague interest, sighing from fatigue. I hadn't realized until now how I tired I was. Forcing my way into the base feels like a memory from yesterday.

Zim mistakes my sigh for one of sadness, or whatever else aliens feel for dead siblings. I can feel his questioning stare on the back of my head. "Gaz-human," he says, "why do you seek such vengeance for your litter-mate anyway? Did you not attempt to destroy your pitiful attempt at a brother?"

I cast a glance back at him, unable to see much more than part of a green head and one enormous crimson eye. Huh. I hadn't even noticed him take his disguise off.

I remain silent for a few more seconds, trying to think of what to say. I don't really know why I'm so intent on finding Dib's killer. I mean, it wasn't like we were best friends back before he was road pizza. Mostly he just annoyed me.

"Because, Zim," I say slowly, not still entirely sure of my answer, "I hated him a little less than everybody else. And because whoever killed him deserves to die."

I see him watch me for a few more moments suspiciously, then thankfully return his attention to flying. I also turn my head back to the window, still slightly confused. I'd never really given my reason for revenge much thought. It had just seemed to me the thing to do at the time.

But that time in the kitchen…that makes me think. Afterwards I had just passed it off as a moment of weakness, but maybe I did care for Dib, somewhere deep under all my apathy.

Or, I muse, I could just want an excuse to inflict horrible pain on someone.

Either way, really.

* * *

Did you see me trying to explain Gaz's motives here? Awful, wasn't it. I am so sick of writing this.


	5. Puppets

Well, this is it. Technically this is two chapters, since it's about twice the length of the first thrilling installment, but it didn't seem like the sort of thing I could easily break up. This took me forever to write, but I had to get it out of my head. So I hand it over to you, my dear audience, to deal with as you please.

For the love of everything, don't read this if you can't handle weirdness and bizarre plot twists in massive amounts. Those with heart conditions and pregnant women are advised to quickly but quietly leave the room.

**Disclaimer:** The same one that was in chapters 1-3. Leave me alone, I'm tired.

* * *

"End your temporary hibernation now, human, for we have arrived!"

The screech hits me like a fist and I jerk my head up off my elbow, temporarily disorientated. My current location would be enough to startle most people, being in an alien spaceship as I am, but with a paranormal brother and a father that invented Super Toast I've learned to take things in stride.

So I only jump a little bit when I recognize the crimson blur in front of me as Zim's eyes two inches from my own.

Groaning, I shove him away from me and wipe the sleep out of my eyes. "How long was I out for?" I moan.

"Twelve of your Earth…minutes? Years? Zim cannot be bothered to keep track of your inferior human time units."

I assume that Zim would be too impatient to wait for me more than a few seconds and conclude that I probably just slept the rest of the trip. Leaning over, I check out the window to see where we are.

At first, all I can see is a sort of dingy white fuzz, but than the cloud passes and a large grey block gradually presents itself beneath me, surrounded by some more, smaller grey blocks and what might be a moat. Tiny specks of light like a flock of prison fairies dot the rim of the blocks.

I mentally scoff at myself. Prison fairies? I must be spending too much time thinking of Dib.

"My base's instructions assure me that this is the meat-cage you seek," says Zim behind me. "Where should we land?"

I peer down at the building- the Broyee Women's Prison, apparently- and try to figure out where the parking lot might be. "Fly closer, I can't see anything from this height."

The engines make a funny shivering noise and stop working.

Immediately I feel the ship drop out from underneath us and my stomach leaps into my throat. My breath rushes out in a gasp as I slam into the ceiling painfully, able to see through the window that we're plummeting towards a bank of whiteness.

I struggle against the G forces to turn my aching head around to where Zim is frantically kicking the control panel, hitting random buttons in an effort to stop us.

"Idiot!" I screech. "Turn us back on!" I can barely hear myself past the crushing feeling in my head.

The cloudbank hits us like a hurricane, throwing fireworks of rain against the windows. Clouds within the cloud rush past in a kaleidoscope of gray and white smears.

And then, just as suddenly, we plunge out of the clouds and stop.

I land with my face awkwardly squished up against the window, and Zim ends up with the steering mechanism pressed up into his gut. While I try to decide between ripping his arms off or just pushing him out of the cockpit, he gets his breath back.

"Is this close enough to please the Gaz-monster?" he declares with his head thrown back, still gasping a little.

Deciding to save most of my rage for the moment, I let him go with a 'you will pay for this' glare and lean forward to peer through the windshield.

We're hovering about a hundred feet above the main complex. From here I can see that the prison is built like a medieval fortress, high and dark with tiny little glowing windows. The thing I thought was a moat is an outer wall, complete with outposts and searchlights the size of minivans. Little or none of the complex is free space or anything other than giant grey blocks; I guess aesthetics isn't a concern here.

I scan the area. No parking lots. Okay.

"Land on the roof," I say, pointing to the biggest block, then add pointedly, "and try not to kill us."

But this time Zim manages to bring us down without any bouts of uncontrolled freefall, and with two thunks the Voot touches down on the flat stone roof.

As the windshield slides open and the stale air of the prison compound hits me, Zim says, "Your target is in the right wing of the construct we have landed on. Cell 45A." I look back to see him reading the location off a small handheld screen.

He hands it to me, and I watch as a tiny black arrow aligns itself with the screen's new position. Below it is a sketchy map of the prison, with a pulsing red dot several levels below us designating the target. Vengeance is within sight.

I sigh and look up, eyeing the inky black sky with a vague sense of fulfilled purpose. Once I get this over with, I tell myself, I'll never have to think about Dib or his crazy pet alien again. I can go home, finish school, and maybe get a job at the tattoo parlor, or go into welding.

I close my eyes for a moment and think, I can finally be alone.

"Human meat-child, do you have the paralysis?"

Just not yet.

I turn to Zim, wondering at the sight of the little alien bathed in the quiet pinkish-purple lights of the cockpit, his eyes seemingly black. Even in his disguise, which he may or may not have brought with him, he'll probably only slow me down. And besides-

"I need to do this alone," I say. "I'll be back in a half hour. Any later, you come get me."

I turn away and walk towards a tall, dark structure on the roof, the tracker in my hand and the pistol in my bag my only comforts. I get maybe twenty feet away before Zim calls to me, "Foolish human! You _dare_ deny the help of ZIM?"

I flip him the bird and keep walking.

It turns out that the dark structure is some sort of exhaust vent, currently oozing some sort of horrible-smelling gas. I tilt my head at it, musing at the possibilities. I could do this the fancy way and sneak in like something out of a James Bond movie, or I could just blow it up.

In the end I decide that the blowing-things-up idea is probably the best thing to do, and I jump down the hole of melted metal where the vent used to be, tucking the gun back in my bag.

I land heavily, bending my knees as I hit the floor and glancing from side to side. No alarms go off, strangely. Then again, infiltration by melting a hole in the ceiling probably isn't high on the security system's danger list.

I appear to be in a dark, narrow hallway with metal floors and no lights at all. I can only see because the screen is glowing softly and the pistol's muzzle is flashing green. Checking the scanner again, I head left down the hall. Judging by the sketchy map, I'm in some sort of air vent, which should lead me to cell 45A if I follow it correctly. I tap the screen's surface, trying to get some more specific directions, but it just beeps at me in a quietly irritated sort of way.

I follow the path marked by the arrow on the screen, painfully aware of every seemingly booming footstep and every swish of the bag's straps against my clothes. It's a good thing I wore black today, I think. Even though I didn't know I'd be breaking into a virtual fortress with the help of alien technology.

I pass two more turns, both rights, still following the tiny arrow. The winding turns of the vent remind me of the city outside. Walls of grey on either side, bars of iron on your mind and a layer of filth on your heart. Whoever designed this prison must have been a morbid philosopher. Or emo. Aren't they the same thing, anyway?

The screen beeps sharply, ripping me out of my musing. I look down and see the arrow pulsing angrily, its point halfway through the red dot like a needle through a swollen finger.

Looking in front of me, I see a large square hole in the vent floor. I hold the tracker over it, trying to use the screen as a makeshift flashlight, but I can't see the bottom. That isn't saying much, though; the screen barely throws enough light for me to see the ends of my fingers.

I figure that since I'm in this far already I might as well go for it. Holding my breath like a diver about to plunge off a cliff, I step to edge of the vent and push off into thin air.

For a few seconds, I'm falling in darkness, my arms- along with the lights of the screen and the gun- above my head. I barely register movement; it feels like I'm floating at the bottom of a sea of shadows.

Then my soles meet painfully with a bang on the metal floor, sending two spars of dull pain up and around my joints. The rest of me follows in an ungraceful slump, one of my fingernails jarring as it hits a joint in the metal.

I stand up, leaning against the side of the vent as I readjust my sense of balance and rub my sore ankles. The screen tells me I'm right above the target cell, the arrow practically swimming in the corona of the now-huge red dot.

Fumbling with the gun, it surprises me again as it blooms into a full glow in response to my touch. The trigger-like thing shines brightest of all, almost gold against the blackness of the main metal. Right above it is a delicate switch, gracefully incorporated into the design. At the top of the switch's path is a tiny symbol that looks a lot like a pile of soot with a skull on top.

Guessing that the symbol indicates a high power setting, I move the switch down to about a fifth of the way up. Holding the gun in both hands, I step as far away from my target on the floor as the narrow tunnel allows and pull the trigger.

What comes out the business end of the pistol is nothing like the tunnel of twisting energy that decimated a good chunk of Zim's base. In fact, it looks much like a funnel-shaped beam of soft, silent whitish light. Appearances aside, the pretty light manages to melt through three inches of steel and create a neat hole in the floor.

Peering through, I'm relieved to see that this won't be my third blind leap today. The room below is dingy and small but thankfully lit.

I go to jump, then stop. I haven't even thought of what I'll say to the person who killed Dib. _Hi, I'm here to melt your face off with this pretty alien pistol for making my brother a road pizza. Now hold still or I'll hit the wall instead and cause massive property damage that innocent taxpaying citizens will have to cover for._

Okay, maybe not.

Figuring that anything I say at this point will probably just be redundant anyway, I jump down.

My ankles explode in pain again on the concrete, but I stand up anyway and hold the gun out in front of me, the muzzle glowing green in preparation for firing. Oddly, it strikes me that I've been through a hell of a lot to get to this filthy cell. I'm kind of pissed that it isn't any better than this.

It also strikes me that the cell is empty.

I swear quite vulgarly and glare at the tracker, hoping that I haven't melted the wrong ceiling, but the arrow is still being drowned in the depths of the red dot. This is the right place.

It never occurred to me that the killer might not actually be here when I arrived. I'd just sort of assumed that whatever deity managed this sort of thing would be in the mood for some drama and prearrange everything. Come to think of it, why _had_ I gotten this far? Shouldn't I have been killed by one of the cars I had been trying to tag? Shouldn't Zim have turned me away? Shouldn't there be better alarms in a prison this big? None of this makes any sense.

A chill finds its way where I can't remember a chill having ever gone before: a slow, narrow path down the center of my spine. All of a sudden I realize how fake this situation seems. Now that I've stopped to think about things, nothing seems to align. Everything that's happened so far seems unreal, planned out, like a trashy beach novel.

And, I realize, I don't even really care that Dib is dead.

What is _happening_ to me?

"Fate, child. Fate of the worst kind."

The chill leaks out of my spine and into my veins. Slowly, I turn my head to the back of the cell, my teeth gritted and my neck prickling.

Lurking against the back of the wall is none other than Ms. Bitters.

I let out my breath in a disbelieving rush. "You're joking." The base of my mind feels like it's falling out of my head from all the weirdness of this situation. I look around, trying to spot the cameras of some sort of morbid Candid Camera-knockoff show or the avatar of whatever cruel god delights in this sort of thing, but she keeps talking.

"You are here to avenge the death of your brother, who was crushed to death by a vehicle two months ago to the day. You have searched everywhere for the name of the perpetrator, finally finding it in a section of a newspaper deliberately placed on your table. You have enlisted the help of an extraterrestrial being and have flown to this cell in a ship that should have been too damaged to fly. And, perhaps most importantly of all, you have seen the need to avenge a brother you didn't particularly care for."

I stare at her like an idiot. My mind is crashing in a tidal wave of pure shock. I can't even think of anything other than that Bitters' dry, snarling voice reminds me of the years I spent in her classroom listening to her rant about the various coming dooms.

She continues on, ignoring my stunned silence. "There are five alarms in this prison which should have gone off the moment you entered. There are two more that should have been triggered when you broke into this cell. There even a few that should have alerted someone to the fact that there is no Destine Grisaille in this cell. But none of them were activated."

"What?" I finally fish my voice out of the shocked turmoil reeling around in my head, but I can't seem to manage anything longer than the one syllable.

Bitters glances at me, her eyes invisible behind the silvery glasses she always wears. A pale, narrow hand emerges from her black dress-thing and points at me accusingly, like the hand of Fate itself.

"You, dear Gaz, are not supposed to be here. But you are. Would you like to know why?"

I'm too confused to do anything but nod.

She floats forward, the jagged edges of her gown clearing the floor and writhing with a life of their own. That doesn't surprise me; everyone who's gone through even one year of Skool has seen Bitters float clean through her desk at least once. It's just one of the things people see but never question.

"Because, dear," she hisses dryly, "you need to know."

Again, I nod stupidly like a puppet on a string.

"You need to know why your brother was killed, and the reason is this: we weren't ready.

"Your brother was the kind of person who triggers the landslides of history, the revolutions, the breakdowns in the machine of unthinking thought. Left alive, he would have caused disaster. You can't even begin to imagine the things that happen when the world changes too fast."

"This is…the same Dib we're talking about, right? The crazy, paranormal Dib?" This is getting beyond weird. My brother couldn't even get me to listen to him, let alone the entire world. Discreetly I bite my tongue to make sure I'm not dreaming.

Damn. I'm awake.

"People are fools, child. When you've lived as long as I you learn these things. Presented with the right kind of proof, they would have become all too willing to listen to your brother. And he, in the excitement of being acknowledged, would have led us down the path to doom. For the sake of fate, he was removed." She makes a weird rolling motion with her shoulders, like a python trying to swallow a large gazelle.

"So…you _did_ kill him?" Her reasoning is getting hard to follow. Dib would have destroyed the world? But he spent his whole life trying to _save_ it, trying to prove...

_Presented with the right kind of proof, they would have become all too willing to listen to your brother._

Zim.

Why does that make sense?

"I myself did not kill your brother. However, the truck that hit him would not have done so had I not willed it. So in a way, yes."

I just stare at her. Slowly it dawns on me that I had finally found the person who killed my brother. Almost unwillingly, my eyes flick to the gun still glowing green in my hand.

Bitters laughs, a dusty, unused sound that reminds me of sandpaper. "You won't need that, silly girl. Put it away."

I do, without really meaning to. Why had I wanted revenge so badly anyway?

"Because, Gaz, you are the same sort of person your brother was."

I eye her nervously. Not because of the mind-reading thing, that was another of her old Skool tricks, but because I'm not sure if she'll try to knock me off as well.

She does the sandpaper laugh again. "You are no danger to fate, Gaz. You know that."

I do, I realize. I despise the world. I wouldn't try to stop it even if I knew how.

My eye twitches with annoyance. Damn Bitters and her mind-reading. I hate having her tell me what I think.

"So why are you telling me this?" I say, the numbness slowly receding.

"Really, Gaz," she deadpans, "you would have found out anyway."

Then my head starts to fill with stars and I feel myself falling down and back, through the floor and into a darkness deeper than the night itself…

My last conscious thought is that I still don't know which car hit him.

Bugger.

* * *

A little explanation is in order here: 

The idea I had was that Bittters was a kind of enacter of Fate, someone who made sure that history made out the way it was supposed to. I mean, she obviously wasn't human, that much is obvious from the show. So this is my interpretation of it.

I don't really like this fic, so I won't be offended if you don't either.

Epilogue next week, R&R if there is any good in your soul. It would make a recovering author slightly happier. Humor me.

**Note:** Some of the earlier chapters have had some stuff deleted from them. Nothing big, just some of the head- and footnotes.


	6. Mismatched Edges Epilogue

Well, this is it. Big thanks to everyone who stuck through this, it's been a nightmare. Just a short epilogue to wrap things up.

**Disclaimer:** Same as always.

* * *

Outside of Zim's house is a blue shoebox. In it are three disks, each with over fifteen hours of video evidence, four folders of files and diagrams, and an alien pistol.

I don't really want to give the pistol back, but it'll led to problems eventually. Besides, I need to get rid of any evidence.

I end my adventure the same way I started it: walking. This time I'm not in the middle of the road, though. I'm sticking to the sidewalks like the good little pedestrian I am.

My hood is up on my black sweatshirt, shielding me from the glances of curious passerby. I don't know why, but no matter how many times people see you they still stare if you're dressed in all black. I'm sure my art teacher could tell you something about the 'visual void' it creates or whatever, but why can't people just leave me alone?

I yank the edge further forward as a boy on the other side of the street tries to get a closer look. It's getting kind of late out; he should probably be home by now. I should, too, I think. Except that I told the house computer I'd be back three days from now, just in case, so I've got some leeway. It won't let me back in if I show up late.

The street starts to grow dark, the streetlights silently popping on like drowsy fireflies. The stars try to come out, too, but they're smeared into little swirls of greyness by the pollution. Swollen clouds the color of city sludge further hide them in their dingy bodies.

Night in this city is so disgusting.

I trudge along, my entire form buried in black and purple. I'm going the long way around tonight; my normal shortcut would take me through a slightly less desirable part of town. It's not so much that I'm nervous about that, though, I just want some time to think.

I woke up four days ago in my back yard, nauseous and cold. I couldn't remember anything for hours. Then, everything came in at once like a tidal wave of weirdness, and I remembered.

I still don't seriously believe it happened, though.

I mean, I had the pistol, and it was the right date and everything, but nothing seems to fit. I haven't heard anything from Zim since then, and there was nothing in the news about a prison break-in. Well, aside from the usual ones anyway.

Even stranger, the blurb in the newspaper that tipped me off is gone. I've checked, twice. It simply isn't there anymore. The space where it used to be is occupied by a private ad looking for a parrot.

And, it turns out, the Broyee Prison doesn't exist either.

They're both just gone. Like it never happened.

The night progresses and the street slowly turns into a quiet suburb. My footsteps, faint taps bouncing off eggshell-white siding, are the only sounds. Somewhere off in the distance, a light flickers out into the gloom.

My fingertips, naked in my fingerless gloves, are growing numb. I jam them deep into my pockets, cursing the cold. At least the filth of the city keeps it warm.

But the persistent chill attacks my unprotected nose as well, so I burrow further into the striped scarf I brought along. Red and black with tiny embroidered spiders along the edges, it's one of favorite pieces of clothing.

I don't want to admit it, but the real reason I brought it along was to remind me of myself.

I take a deep sniff, reveling in the scarf's musky, cozy scent. It's comforting, having something that won't erase itself from history suddenly. Or change completely to suit someone else's purposes.

The thought brings my simmering discomfort to the surface. Delicately plucked violet eyebrows curve towards each other as I lose myself in the well-worn tracks of this particular line of thought.

In all of everything that's happened over the last few weeks, nothing bothers me more than what happened to _me_.

I stare down at the ground, mindlessly watching my feet try to outpace one another. I feel the same as I did before Dib was killed- cold, distant, apathetic. Uncaring. It's comforting in its familiarity. But I remember how I felt before, how I wanted revenge so much I couldn't think of anything else. How I cried, alone in the kitchen, for the first time in years and years. How I stormed into Zim's base by myself, maybe even what I felt towards him…

I shake my head to myself. Why had I acted that way? I didn't even like Dib that much when he was alive, much less dead, why would I care so much about revenge? And Zim- when I had ever been so friendly around him?

Who was I?

I shake my head again, more forcefully, trying to wipe the questions from my mind like a giant Etch-a-Sketch. It's easiest just not to think about it, really. Whatever tiny piece of the world broke off when Dib was hit has reattached itself, blatantly ignoring any mismatched edges. Everything is back to normal. Well, normal minus one paranormal brother and a whole lot of sense, anyway.

But that sounds more like normal to me than anything.

* * *

Yay, it's over! Alright, everyone who hasn't reviewed so far: please do. I'll never know what works or what what doesn't if you don't tell me.

Concrit, flames, compliments, whatever, all welcome. PM me for anything else. Peace out.


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